"Taye's soul burned with the shame of pushing Clay away."

Based on the blurb I expected this to be a dark story with violence, angst and heartbreak. But the truth is, it's not. This book begins a full year after Tate's horrible ordeal and instead focuses on his long, difficult and very painful journey to recovery. There is still angst and heartbreak, it's incredible just how strong Tate is, not only surviving everything that happened to him, but overcoming and healing the emotional and mental damage done to him. I felt so much for him as he struggled. And my heart ached for Clay as he tried to do everything he could to help and support the man he loves, even when Tate pushed him away.

Clay and Tate's relationship is beautiful and almost perfect. They are two parts of a whole and clearly meant to be together. And steamy! Wow! I swear flames burst from the pages at times.

I haven't read any other books in the series so all their friends were unknown to me, but Susan did a great job of providing enough I didn't feel lost. The truth is, after reading this book I'm ready to go back and read all the earlier books. And I'm looking forward to all the others still to come. Especially Jax. Such an interesting, fascinating story his is going to be.

This book has tons of triggers, too many to list and most would be spoilers to the story. If you need a list of triggers it's probably best you just avoid reading this one and choose something else. For everyone else, just be prepared, this one's not a light read, but even though there is sadness and suffering there's also hope, and so much love, which makes it all bearable in the end.

"Feat of Clay," tells the story of two men growing in their relationship together. The story starts after Tate has recovered from being imprisoned and abused when his cover on the assignment he was on was blown. Tate and Clay had grown up as best friends, but revealed their feelings to each other while Tate was recovering and had become lovers.

Clay was a former RAF and SAS officer and now owns his own investigation company. When Tate separated from the police force, Clay hired him. Initially, Clay wanted to keep their relationship a secret to protect Tate from Clay’s enemies, but Tate chafed at being treated as fragile. As the book progresses Tate opens up more about his ordeal and Clay loosens his grip on how protective he’s been.

There are plenty of steamy scenes between the two men, as they both are eager to express their feelings for the other. The side characters also add interest and depth to the story. Especially sweet Jax, who Tate meets at the hallway house he starts helping at as part of his therapy. Overall, I enjoyed "Feat of Clay" and would give it a rating of three and a half stars stars.

This book is not for the faint of heart, I would definitely watch the trigger warnings because the list is extensive but the blurb does give you the overall feel that it would be quite heavy since Tate is recovering from being tortured.

Overall 3.5 stars, I liked it, but I found the pacing a bit off, I got really invested only towards the end. I felt that it was sometimes weird that I couldn't place which character's POV I was reading, as they seemed similar but also kept jumping back and forth. For example, I would be reading Tate's POV chapter and in the middle, it changes to Clay's, just a bit odd.

The spicy scenes were okay but I did find it a bit cringy at times. Overall average good, I think this book has a good mental health and disability rep.

Clay and Tate really caught me up in their lives. This book is a great romance with a lot of depth to it. Be aware there are some hard hitting issues/ events in the book (including sexual assault, emotional and physical torture). These characters love each other fiercely and that leaves them in a mess as Clay is trying to get back on track. He lives in a world in which he is faced with nightmares and longs to be the independent, fearless man he once was.